University College London Embarks On First Phase Of 100PB Cloud Infrastructure Build Out For Research Collaboration With Datadirect Networks Object Storage Technology

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

News Facts

• University College London (UCL), ranked consistently as a top-five university worldwide, has selected DataDirect Networks (DDN) to provide up to 3,000 researchers with a safe and resilient storage solution for sharing, reusing and preserving project-based research data.
• With 25 Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and staff as well as a world-class reputation for the quality of its teaching and research, UCL sought to remove the burden of storing and preserving research data from individual researchers and in doing so, lower the barriers of sharing and exploiting vital findings in order to improve research outcomes and overcome problems of global significance.
• As UCL's storage demands grow, the university expects to build a storage foundation that will scale up to 100PB. Looking for a storage solution that was massively scalable yet simple to manage as part of the first phase of the infrastructure build out, UCL will use DDN ^TM object storage technology to store up to 600TB of research data.
• DDN object storage capabilities also will be able to empower UCL researchers to collaborate without having to worry about data reliability, compliance obligations or long-term retention of critical research assets.
• With DDN WOS® distributed object storage architecture, GRIDScaler^TM parallel file storage system and tight integration with the Integrated Rule-Oriented Data Management Solution (iRODS), UCL forecasts it will save up to hundreds of thousands of UK pounds by slashing hardware, power and staffing costs, as well as maintenance fees, associated with attaining and maintaining personal data stores across 100 departments, institutes and research centers.

Tweet this: @UCLnews selects @DDN_limitless for collaboration on up to 100PBs of research data #storage #cloud #bigdata

DDN Delivers High-Performance Storage without Adding Complexity

• Faced with the need to accommodate all types of research data of varying velocity and growth rates, UCL wanted to consolidate storage and minimize the cost, administration and compliance risks of individual researchers maintaining standalone removable hard drives and USB drives containing critical research data.
• Additionally, given UCL's highly-congested, expensive downtown London location, power and space efficiency was critical which made a high-density storage architecture essential to the university.
• Rather than taking an approach that limited application access and scale, UCL selected the combination of DDN's distributed WOS and GRIDScaler technology to provide the desired scalability, performance, reliability, portability and management simplicity.
• With DDN WOS storage technology, UCL also expects to better meet increasingly stringent compliance requirements for the management and preservation of research data as required by the UK Research Councils and other UK funding bodies.
• DDN's strong track record of supporting massive research initiatives and diverse academic environments was a significant consideration in the final decision as UCL wanted a partner that understood the differences between corporate and academic worlds, including the critical importance of delivering a solution researchers would embrace and use.

Supporting Quotes

Dr. J. Max Wilkinson, Head of Research Data Services for University College London's Information Services Division:

• "We were very interested in building a relationship with a strong storage partner to fill our technology gap. After a thorough assessment, DDN met our technical requirements and shared our data storage vision. In evaluating DDN, we agreed that the WOS solution had a simple proposition, was high performance and had low administration overhead."
• "DDN is empowering us to deliver performance and cost savings through a dramatically simplified approach. Add in the fact that DDN's resilient, extensible storage technology provided evidence for seamless expansion from a half-petabyte to 100PBs, and we found exactly the foundation we were looking for."

Dr. Daniel Hanlon, Storage Architect for Research Data Services in University College London's Information Services Division:

• "It was important that DDN's solution gave us multiple ways to access the same storage so we could be compatible with existing application codes. The tendency with other solutions was to give us bits of technology that had been developed in different spaces and that didn't really fit our problem."
• "We wanted to work with a storage solution provider that took advantage of open-source solutions. This enables us to partner not just with DDN but and also with other academic institutions."

Ashish Nadkarni, Research Director, IDC:

• "For 2013, IDC anticipates object storage growing faster than any other segment in the file-and-object storage market. A driver in the growth of private cloud adoption is the control over data security and resiliency users get compared to public clouds. As more companies look at object storage for collaborative file sharing, archive and backup, IDC is seeing an acceleration in cloud adoption. UCL is a great example of this mainstream private cloud adoption of object storage for collaborative file sharing."

Supporting Resources

• Learn more about DDN
• About DDN WOS Technology
• About GRIDScaler
• University College London Case Study
• Follow DDN via Blog and Twitter

About DataDirect Networks

DataDirect Networks (DDN) is the world leader in massively scalable storage. Our data storage and processing solutions and professional services enable content-rich and high growth IT environments to achieve the highest levels of systems scalability, efficiency and simplicity. DDN enables enterprises to extract value and deliver business results from their information. Our customers include the world's leading online content and social networking providers, high performance cloud and grid computing, life sciences, media production, and security and intelligence organizations. Deployed in thousands of mission critical environments worldwide, DDN's solutions have been designed, engineered and proven in the world's most scalable data centers to ensure competitive business advantage for today's information powered enterprise. For more information, go to www.ddn.com or call 1-800-837-2298.

©2013 All rights reserved. DDN, Storage Fusion Architecture, SFA12K, WOS, DirectMon, hScaler and Information In Motion are trademarks owned by DataDirect Networks. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Dani Kenison
Sr. Director, Global Corporate Communications
DataDirect Networks
Work: 408-990-2658
Twitter: @danikenison
www.ddn.com

SOURCE DataDirect Networks